New E. Germany Seeks Deliverance From Past

April 13, 1990|By Washington Post

EAST BERLIN — East Germany's first democratic government began its work Thursday by trying to heal the past and seal the future, asking Jews and the Soviet Union to forgive East Germans for their role in Nazi atrocities and pushing to achieve economic and social unification with West Germany by July 1.

In a series of resolutions, the new parliament assured Poland that its border with East Germany is inviolable, demanded that the new Germany maintain East Germany's constitutional guarantees of work and housing, and agreed that a united Germany should join NATO if the alliance changes its nuclear strategy.

Parliament elected Lothar de Maiziere as the country's first non-Communist prime minister, voting 265 to 108 for the quiet former musician whose Christian Democratic Union won last month's election.

With the vote, the new government replaces the Communist caretaker government that has been running the country since East Germans overthrew the hard-line regime of Erich Honecker in October.

De Maiziere announced a 24-member cabinet that emerged from nearly a month of negotiations with four other parties, including the main opposition, the Social Democrats.

The resulting coalition, a clean sweep of Communist control, gives the new government the two-thirds majority it needs to make the wholesale constitutional changes necessary to reunite the two Germanys.

The new coalition announced its support for unification ''without delay,'' to be achieved through West German annexation of East Germany's five historic states.

The new parliament immediately moved to emphasize its differences with the ousted Communist regime.

It said East Germany could approve NATO membership for a united Germany, but only if NATO changes its nuclear strategy, which now calls for the alliance to defend itself against a Soviet attack on German soil.

By formally recognizing the German-Polish border, East Germany moved to ease Polish fears of a united Germany and implicitly criticized West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whose reluctance to affirm the existing border damaged West German relations with Poland, France and the Soviet Union earlier this year.

Parliament also broke with 40 years of East German denials of responsibility for the war crimes and genocide of Nazi Germany. East Germany's Communist leaders had argued that its hands were clean because the Nazis had imprisoned many Communists, including several who became top East German politicians.

But Thursday, parliament acknowledged East German responsibility for Nazi deeds and asked Jews around the world, Israel and the Soviet Union for forgiveness. It promised to make reparations to Israel and seek diplomatic ties.